Bailey Hill Road just a few miles from the Bike Friday Factory provided the perfect testing challenge for the BionX pedal assist unit.

By Raz

When I hopped onto a Haul-a-Day outfitted with the BionX pedal assist, I fought back the urge. The need for speed.

I have ridden a pedal assist before. I knew what would come. What I wondered most was the impact of the BionX unit on the basic ride of the Haul-a-Day.

How would the added weight affect the ride? How would it affect the handling? How would it affect my ability to power the bike.

So I rolled away without the BionX pedal assist engaged. I rode the first five miles like that, tackling a few hills along the way.

Surprisingly, even though it added more than 17 pounds to the bike, I could barely feel a difference from my ride to work that morning on a Haul-a-Day. Again, we’re talking a Haul-a-Day that starts around 33 pounds, so this isn’t a 16-pound Super Pro. Weight gain is relative.

On flats I couldn’t tell a difference at all. Once I started up a hill, I could feel the extra weight. Not until I hit a significant incline did it really hit me as a factor. I should insert here that I’m no superman on a bike. I have what I call Commuter Fitness.

Heading up hill is when I experienced the pedal assist. The first thing you notice is silence. There is no sound. You are not on a scooter.

I started with the 35% level, and realized quickly that in most cases without a heavy load, this would more than suffice in making life a little easier. I was climbing the initial part of the hill at nearly 10 mph, with one hand on the handlebars and the other holding a video camera. I doubt I could climb any hill like that without assistance.

Jumping up to 75% pedal assist felt much like dropping down a gear to keep your cadence up as a hill steepens. At the steepest section of the hill, a 75% assist with no load is plenty.

But, of course, the goal of this experiment was to push it. So I did. Hitting 150% made me giggle. You can feel like a pro. At 300% I realized the pedal assist, with or without a load, pretty much would make anything possible.

On the way down, I engaged the regeneration. It feels as though you are feathering the brakes to keep you speed low, but you are recharging the battery as you do so. However, it is not a braking system, and I quickly sped up to 20, 25 and eventually more than 30 mph. All the while recharging the battery!

For me, the real beauty of the system was displayed in the first five miles. Call me a bit of a traditionalist, but the idea of pedal assist had philosophical elements attached for me that I wasn’t sure I could handle. I’ll call it a surrender of purity.

By the time I finished the last five miles, playing with all the elements of pedal assist and toying with the endless possibilities, I realized it’s all under my control. I can ride the way I’ve always ridden, on my own power, if I wish. However, if I decide I want to catch that roadie who has a 200-meter lead on me at the base of a big climb, with the push of a button and a little extra on the pedal, I can do so.

And I’ll admit, I almost did just that. I could have caught that guy, but I couldn’t live with myself. So I stopped and let him get over the top. Then I started, on the hill, from a standstill, one-handed. It was a breeze.

The BionX battery will rest on the mid-section of the Haul-a-Day, leaving the rack for carrying whatever you planned on carrying.

The February 2015 issue of Bicycle Times has hit the newsstands, bike shops and homes, and it has their review of the Haul-a-Day in it. Check it out!

Reviewer Adam Newman says:

“I enjoyed the practicality of the Haul-a-Day because when unloaded it didn’t have the massive cruise-liner feeling that many cargo bikes have. The majority of the long-tail bikes I see here in Portland are ridden by women with children on the back, and Bike Friday says it is targeting these customers with a bike that is lighter, more maneuverable and less intimidating than a “full-size” cargo bike…

“That’s not to say it isn’t up to the task of serious carrying capacity. I used it to shuttle hundreds of wooden stakes around a cyclo-cross course and the saddlebags easily accommodated the extra-long cargo. As further proof of its bonafides, the Haul-a-Day made a splash at the Portland Disaster Relief Trials, a day-long competition for cargo bikes and riders to simulate the (sometimes crazy) support that a human-powered machine can provide when disasters strike. Tasks include carrying a wooden pallet, five-gallon buckets of water, and a carton of eggs. Bike Friday engineer Willie Hatfield took the win on a Haul-a-Day with a wild paint job.”

We’ve said before that you’d be hard-pressed to find a more eclectic bunch than the gang here at Bike Friday.

We’re proud to say that our own Raz (aka, John Rezell) will publish three ebooks on January 26th. “A More Simple Time: How Cycling Saved My Soul” chronicles Raz’s time as a writer covering bicycle racing in the US from 1989-1996.

It includes personal tales of how cycling changed his outlook on life, including chapters on his first touring trip from San Francisco to San Diego (before he became hooked on Bike Fridays).

Learn more about Raz’s ebooks on his website ConquerMountains.com. His books are now available for pre-order on Amazon, iTunes and Barnes & Noble.

Bike Friday owner David Webber kicked off the New Year on the Mt. Airy ride January 1st in Maryland.

To give you a feel of what a group ride is like on a Bike Friday Crusoe, he posted a video on YouTube.

Here’s his description of what you’ll see:

“Initial 15 minutes of the 36 mile group heading out. Riding my Bike Friday Crusoe and recorded with Fly6 video at 720p. Then the ride telemetry added using Garmin Virb Edit and 15 minutes of greenscreen from Virb camera combined with the GPS track. The whole thing is then put together and produced using the OpenShot software. The telemetry is about 15 seconds ahead – so it shows what is about to happen. This is mainly about showing the concepts here rather than precise production details. Plus of course you get to ride a Bike Friday on a group ride and see how that rolls. Enjoy and Happy New Year biking.